Until I saw it for myself, I didn't know you could make a movie as bad as Fantastic Four and get away with it.

The plot of Fantastic Four goes something like this: an egghead scientist decides that the crazy space-cloud that caused humans to evolve will be making a second pass over earth within weeks. Screw you, Charles Darwin! Anyway, dude hypothesizes that going up in a rocket and blowing the cloud up is the only way to save Earth from turning into Space Jam or something. But, wouldn't you know it, the interstellar mission goes horribly wrong, and the cloud passes right over the fateful ship, causing rampant mutation of the five people on board and, for some reason, no one else. The mutants go back to earth and have difficulties adjusting to mutant life in New York -- some of which are comical and some of which involve fire.

This is about the point I tuned out on Fantastic Four, and if you go see it, this is probably where it'll lose you, too. You see, the problem with Fantastic Four isn't its feverishly cliched script or wooden performances. The problem with Fantastic Four is that, for about three-quarters of the movie, nothing happens. And in a big, exciting movie about big, exciting superheroes, something has to happen.

OK, OK. There's a love story, and eventually, a climactic battle (albeit, a climactic battle that lasts about two minutes). The superheroes show off their powers in various ways, and occasionally somebody says some science words. But really, seriously, nothing happens. Fantastic Four is one of the most dreadfully boring films I've ever seen: and stuff explodes!

Fantastic Four isn't just boring, it's badly done, too. For a superhero movie, the special effects seem to be awfully cheap: Mr. Fantastic's stretchy limbs, in particular, look like those Gushers commercials where the kid's head turns into a pineapple. The Thing looks pretty good, although I bet it's hard to mess up instructions like "make him look like a big yellow rock."

And even bad superhero movies like Elektra have one thing going for 'em: awesome visuals.

Fantastic Four can't even claim that.

The performances don't help things along much, either. Michael Chiklis fares the best, getting a chuckle or three cracking-wise as the recently divorced Thing; and he says "it's clobberin' time," which is maybe the best catchphrase ever. And to be fair, Jessica Alba isn't bad to look at, kind of like a really dumb painting.

But Ioan Gruffudd is about as unnatural as a hair-weave as Mr. Fantastic, and Julian MacMahon's turn as billionaire villain Victor Von Doom might be worse: his attempt at brooding evil looks more like indigestion with each passing facial tic.

All I have to say of the script is this: people in my theater were laughing at nearly every line. Fantastic Four isn't really a comedy.

I never read comic books, so I guess Fantastic Four might just be like this -- cheesy and overdone and tongue-in-cheek through and through.

But there doesn't seem to be any smirk to be found here: even in the most over-the-top scenes, everybody involved looks like they really believe in this film.

And so, good people, I implore you: When the film ends with its "let's leave room for a sequel in case this turns a profit" shot, don't let them get away with it. One bad Fantastic Four movie is enough for a lifetime.